January 2004 through December 2004 Family Contact Survey Report

Many NFDA member funeral homes utilize NFDA's Family Contact Surveys to gather feedback about the funeral home's services from families they have served. Participating funeral homes give families a copy of the survey, with a preaddressed, prepaid envelope, to complete and mail directly to NFDA. Each month, after collecting the data, NFDA returns the surveys to the participating funeral homes.

As part of ongoing efforts to provide helpful, fact-based information on how consumers evaluate the funeral services they are receiving, NFDA periodically tabulates Family Contact Survey data to produce a national summary of consumer opinion. In the 12-month period from January 1, through December 31, 2004, 3,803 surveys were completed. The following report summarizes response data for all questions on the survey.

Survey Results

• The most frequently chosen reason for selecting a funeral home was previously served family (chosen by 51.7% of respondents), followed by location (50.9%), reputation (50.4%), attendance at other funerals (24.8%), prepaid/prearranged funeral (22.1%), facilities (19.8%), personal recommendation (19.2%), price (8.8%) and advertising (3.4%).
• Descriptives used to tabulate results for services used a 5 point scale of 1=poor, 2–5=fair, good, very good and excellent.
  
  Families rated staff service factors as excellent overall:
  
  Courtesy of staff: 4.82
  Personal attention received: 4.79
  Funeral Director who directed the funeral: 4.79
  Professional pallbearers' politeness/appearance: 4.79
  Funeral director at the arrangement conference: 4.78
  Sensitivity of the funeral director: 4.78
  Limousine driver's politeness/appearance: 4.77
  Attention to details: 4.71
  Presentation of options for personalization: 4.71
• Percentages were used to tabulate results for funeral arrangement, merchandise select and payment policy using a yes/no answer.
  
  Were comfortable making funeral arrangement decisions: 98.3% yes.
  Was there ample time for making merchandise selections: 99% yes.
  Was the explanation of the payment policy clear: 98.6% yes.
• Families were also asked to evaluate the funeral home facility, services received and selection of merchandise. A 5 point scale of 1=poor, 2–5=fair, good, very good and excellent was used to tabulate results.
  
  Quality of Facility: Very good (17.7%) to excellent (79.3%).
  Value of services received: Very good (19.2%) to excellent (76.1%).
  Selection of merchandise: Very good (22.1%) to excellent (72.9%).
• In response to the question “were cost of services lower than expected, as expected or higher than expected,” 76.8% of respondents answered that cost of services were as expected, 13.4% answered higher than expected and 9.8% answered lower than expected.
• In response to the question “were cost of merchandise lower than expected, as expected or higher than expected,” 80.2% of respondents answered that cost of merchandise was as expected, 11.2% answered higher than expected and 8.6% answered lower than expected.
• 77.4% of survey respondents answered “yes” they had a visitation with a viewing and 98.1% answered that they were satisfied (17.8%) to very satisfied (80.3%) with the appearance of their loved one.
• 92.2% answered that there was nothing needed to be done to improve the firm's service.
• 97% of families rated the funeral home they chose as very good (15%) to excellent (82%) and 96.8% answered “yes” that they would recommend their funeral home to others.

NFDA funeral homes interested in using NFDA Family Contact Surveys to gather basic feedback from families click here or contact a Member Services Representative at 800-228-6332.